Frau Drosselmeyer's Dolls
by NaokoYouko
Summary: Solid Snake's time has ended and the threat of Metal Gear is all but extinguished. With Philanthropy having served its purpose, Hal Emmerich finds himself with nothing left until a girl arrives at his door carrying the message of an even greater threat.
1. 1: Sound

-Chapter 1: Sound-  
Otacon had never liked late nights after dozens of all-nighters pulled at MIT; the engineer had learned he wasn't exactly the night owl type. Of course, recently it seemed as if he was slowly drifting across the line that separated all-nighters and flat out insomnia. There he was, staring blankly at his ceiling at three in the morning as a light January snow fell from a dark gray sky. The brunette hardly had any idea how long it had been since Solid Snake had died—the months felt like years, the days like months, and every second reminding him that he was painfully alone. Wolf, Emma, Naomi, Snake...it seemed like everyone he even got near was cursed. Always the survivor...it was only a matter of time, he thought, before something horrible happened and Sunny suffered a similar fate.

Lost in his own thoughts, Otacon wasn't fully aware that he was falling asleep until a sound at the front door jolted him awake—almost like a quiet 'thud'. Gray eyes darted around the dark room as he laid in total silence, hardly daring to even breathe. Like many people, the thirty-eight year old engineer was not at his most coherent at 3 A.M…in fact, he was downright paranoid. He found himself envisioning anything from a branch blowing against the wall to a Metal Gear leveling its missile launchers at his front door. Improbable, of course...but it was amazing how much power those ridiculous little nagging thoughts could have at night. At length he decided to investigate, fumbling for the glasses that rested on his nightstand beside an alarm clock that now read 3:24 in electric green. The sound had only occurred once, and the house had since fallen back into silence, but Otacon knew restlessness would not allow him to sleep until he knew nothing was about to blow up his house.

As silently as he could—he had never exactly been stealthy-the scientist stumbled out of his room and glanced around. His eyes lingered on the kitchen as the idea of taking a knife occurred to him before being dismissed just as quickly. Fighting wasn't exactly something he could do, and even if he did arm himself, he couldn't ever imagine killing someone. Nervously, he cast a look at the front door...whatever was on the other side, he'd be facing it alone and unarmed. Hesitating a moment or two, he stepped forward and tightly gripped the doorknob. This was it, he'd either find absolutely nothing or...or, well...something. Otacon pulled the door open to the cold winter air and stopped dead at what he saw...

A girl sat at his feet, leaning on the doorframe apparently asleep. She wore what almost looked like a tight gray Sneaking Suit, with twin pistols on a belt cinched tightly around her waist. Another belt was draped across her shoulder, this one covered with spare bullets in an orderly row. But what startled Otacon more than anything wasn't what she was wearing or the small arsenal she carried-it was her appearance. The girl blinked once or twice from behind wire framed glasses, looking up at Otacon as if _she_ was the one that should be asking what _he_ was doing there. Her shoulder length brown hair was dusted with the light snowfall that continued around them. They stared at each other—for Otacon, a tense moment that seemed to stop time completely. For the girl, who knew? Her face seemed more or less unreadable, but her appearance was strikingly familiar. She broke the silence by quietly uttering two words that shocked the scientist so badly, he could only say one in reply.

"...Hal Emmerich."

"E..._Emma_…?!"

-end of chapter one-


	2. 2: Words

-Chapter 2: Words-

A few seconds' thought told Otacon that this girl was most definitely not his deceased sister Emma, despite the passing resemblance. Aside from the obvious impossibility, Emma wouldn't have been wearing a small arsenal. And of course…Emma had been a little more eloquent than the stilted voice of the girl in front of him. She stood on thin, wobbling legs, almost as if she wasn't quite sure how they worked, and repeated what she had said before, with a short addition:

"Hal Emmerich… Are you Hal Emmerich?" The scientist adjusted his glasses, wondering in the back of his mind if he was dreaming.

"U-uh… Yeah, that's me…" It was only after those words left his mouth that paranoia seeped into his thoughts—what if she had been sent to kill him for whatever reason? If that was the case, he had basically just screwed himself over. The girl put one hand behind her, reaching for the belt that held the twin handguns; was she hiding another one? Half of Otacon's mind wanted to slam the door and hide behind the couch…the other managed to beat that down and convince him to wait and see what would happen. The girl fumbled with something behind her for a moment and held out…  
…a folded piece of paper.

"A message…for Dr. Emmerich. No one…else." She spoke in a hesitating voice, every few words seeming detached from the rest of her sentence. It was almost as if she had just learned English, yet there wasn't any trace of an accent in her voice. Ignoring this for the moment, Otacon took the paper from her hands and unfolded it.

_To Dr. Hal Emmerich of Philanthropy,_ it read in a plain black font, _there is a threat approaching that could well be greater than any Metal Gear. I've heard of you, of Solid Snake, and of your companions. You know that no great warrior can last forever._

_So…I have sent you one who can and will. As for my name…for now, let's settle for Skuld._

Otacon blinked several times, reading through the letter two or three times. The whole thing was cryptic—first of all, who was this person and how did they know so much? What did they mean, talking about 'a warrior who can and will last forever'? And the one that tugged incessantly at the back of his mind—why did the name 'Skuld' sound so familiar? The engineer looked up, only to find the girl in the tight gray uniform was gone without a trace. Leaning a little further out the door, he cast a look left and right… nothing. With a sigh, Otacon shut the door and turned around…

…only to find the girl sitting bolt upright in a chair nearby, wearing a completely blank expression. After jumping back at least a foot in surprise and barely managing to hold back a cry of surprise, Otacon managed to ask,

"Wh—what're you doing?" The girl shook her head slightly, expression (or lack thereof) unchanging.

"I…do not know." A short silence passed; now that Otacon was fairly sure the girl wouldn't shoot him, curiosity got the best of him.

"What's your name?" he asked. She was silent, unmoving: almost as if she hadn't heard him. "Uh…hello? Did you—"

"…I do not understand. What…is it you are…asking for?" Otacon felt himself getting more and more confused; this _had_ to be a really messed up dream.

"I, uh…asked you for your name. I'm Hal, but I guess you already knew that." Wordlessly, she took something from around her neck and held it out to him…a set of dog tags on a chain. Confused, he took it from her small, pale hands, examining them. The birth date had been scratched out, as had all other information save for a name: Berserk Moth. Otacon glanced up at the girl who stood before him with a flat, expressionless face and then looked back at the name. It almost sounded like a FOXHOUND codename, but that was impossible. FOXHOUND had been disbanded what seemed like a lifetime before then, and he estimated this girl's age to be nineteen at the most.

"Berserk Moth?" he read aloud, as if to confirm it to himself.

"Is that what it says?" the girl replied in a soft, flat tone. "It is all I have; therefore, it is the only answer I can give to any question you ask."

'_Is that what it says'…?_ Otacon repeated in his thoughts. Surely she knew what it said, unless…unless she couldn't read it. Did she even understand what it was?

"So…your name is Moth?" he asked after a long pause, to which the girl tilted her head slightly to the left.

"…'Name'? I…do not understand."

-end of chapter two-


	3. 3: Advent

-Chapter 3: Advent-

Otacon's suspicions had been fact—the girl with the dog tags didn't know what her name was. In fact, she didn't even know what a name was in the first place. Assuming it to be some case of amnesia, he and Sunny did what they could in the week that followed to teach her basic concepts; primarily how to read and write. Strangely, she acquired new information at lightning speed. It was as if all she needed was to see something once and she would be able to replicate it to the smallest detail. (As a result, she wound up with handwriting indiscernible from Otacon's own.) It was his hope that soon she would learn enough to have some kind of memory surface that would tell him who she was. Surely she had parents that were worried about her, or some kind of family she had disappeared from. And when she regained her memory, she would be able to solve the mystery of why she had been asleep on his doorstep wearing two handguns on her waist and a bandolier over her shoulder, not to mention the cryptic note from 'Skuld'.

At least, that was the plan. And as he laid in bed staring at the ceiling for yet another night, he reflected on how unlikely it was. Moth—that was what he had taken to calling her, not having anything else to address her as—might never regain her memory. And what would happen then? Would she continue to live with them? The house had felt disturbingly empty since Snake died…perhaps she could be the third part to their strange little family. One second, he found himself thinking that…the next he found his hearing and the house itself shaken to its core by a massive sound of thunder and violent tremors.

"W-what the—?!" was all he could manage to say before falling out of bed and landing on the floor with a dull thud. Quickly, his brain tried to process what had just happened as he rose to his feet: an explosion? But why, and caused by what? _More importantly, is there going to be another—_Sure enough, the house was rocked by a second roar that seemed to send the entire earth into a violent shudder that nearly took the engineer back down to the floor. _Oh my god, I really am going to get killed by a Metal Gear._ Pushing that thought out of his panicking mind, Otacon tried to bring his more coherent thoughts together. _I've got to get Sunny and—no, Sunny's staying over with Raiden and Rose tonight, isn't she? Okay, then I just need to find Moth and—_ At that moment, the house gave an immense moaning sound as if in protest of the noises and vibrations assaulting it, accompanied by a sound that drained all the color from Otacon's face and seemed to freeze him to where he stood…the sound of wood supports splintering and the very walls around him cracking apart.

"Th-this isn't good…!" Otacon stumbled towards the door, only to have a chunk of the ceiling break apart and collapse behind him in a cloud of dust and plaster. Stunned for a split second, his eyes caught sight of the shoulder bag holding his laptop sitting by the door_. …I'm not leaving Lain here._ As soon as his hand wrapped around the black leather handle, Otacon was aware of someone pulling the back of his shirt and dragging both him and Lain out of the collapsing room.

"Heavy enemy assault detected. Primary course of action is evacuation."

"M-Moth?!" She spoke in her usual flat tone, but now it almost seemed to have a bit more force behind it. The walls around them gave another splintering shriek of protest as Moth grabbed Otacon's wrist and began pulling him down the hall.

"Estimated thirteen point three seconds to total collapse." she muttered, half dragging Otacon by the wrist.

"Wh-what?! 'Total collapse'?!" Moth abruptly halted in front of where there had once been a door; now it was a wall of debris blocking their exit. Seemingly unfazed, Moth held her right arm out, seemingly bracing it with her left hand. Even as Otacon watched, her arm up to the elbow seemed to separate into dozens of tiny rectangular panels and fold back, reforming her hand and forearm into a sleek silver…what _was_ it? The barrel of a gun, maybe? Before Otacon could get a closer look, Moth mumbled to herself,

"Five point two seconds to collapse." A bright blue light began to collect at the end of her arm, where there had once been a hand. Before Otacon could dwell on the fact that this night had basically gone straight to hell, the light formed into a massive laser and blasted straight through where the front door had been. "Three point one…" She grabbed Otacon's wrist and all but threw him and his laptop out the hole she had created. Her laser cannon formed back into a recognizable arm as she dove out after him…the house gave one last creaking death cry and seemed almost to fold in upon itself with the unmistakable sounds of shattering glass, splintering wood, and destroyed memories.

-end of chapter three-


	4. 4: Goddess

-Chapter 4: Goddess-

Otacon stood in front of what had once been recognizable as a house, but was now a pile of dust and broken rubble. Moth lowered herself to one knee beside him, tearing deep, ragged breaths from the cold air and staring at the hand that had blown a hole through a wall. Just as the engineer took a breath to give life to one of the multitude of questions in his head, he heard a shrill beeping that seemed to emanate from everywhere, almost like a particularly irritating alarm clock. It was, of course, his Codec ringing, although he hadn't the slightest idea who might be calling.

"…Hey!" a woman's voice said immediately after he answered it, clearly sounding much too irritated for such a silly formality as a greeting. "Am I speaking to Hal Emmerich?!"

"Uh…y-yeah. Who's this?" A short silence passed, and the woman's voice replied in a skeptical tone:

"How do I know you're the genuine article? Any half-wit moron could just answer yes to that question, and I don't want to be the one that's sat here like an idiot for two days on end dialing every frequency I could think of for nothing."

"You…want me to prove it?"

"Yes," the woman said with a casual air of thoughtfulness, "but how…ah! I know! I want you to name for me all of the angels in Neon Genesis Evangelion, in order from first to seventeenth."

"…You're joking, right?"

"The real Dr. Emmerich is called 'Otacon' for a reason. Now spill it." Whoever this woman was, it was obvious she was a little unbalanced to say the least. Nevertheless, Otacon knew he wouldn't get any answers out of her without doing this first.

" 'In order'?" he replied with a sigh. "I can't do that."

"I knew it. You're not him after all." the woman replied in a voice drowning in superiority.

"No, I can't do it because I don't know which list you want. Rebuild of Evangelion considers Sachiel, Shamshel, and Ramiel the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth, while they were Third, Fourth, and Fifth in the original series. Also, you left out the Eighteenth Angel like some fans do, otherwise I would have ended with Rei or Lilim as the Eighteenth."

There was what could only be described as a stunned silence from the nameless woman, a silence that lasted at least a minute.

"That's…not what I was expecting, but you convinced me. Listen carefully, I haven't the time to repeat myself. My name is Skuld, I'm the one that sent you Berserk Moth. Your life is in danger, and I need you to meet me in person as soon as—"  
"Wait a second." Otacon interrupted. "My house just collapsed two seconds ago, and _now_ I hear someone's out to kill me?!"

"….Ah." Skuld replied, more a note of acknowledgement than anything else. "I suppose finding your frequency took longer than I expected." A short silence followed, seeming to Otacon as if there was an elephant in the room by the name of 'what's wrong with you?'

"…You said your name was Skuld?"

"Correct."

"In that case, Skuld, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to sit here in the freezing cold until I wake up in my not demolished house."

"I hate to break it to you, doctor, but this is no dream. I need you to come here as soon as possible; there are details pertaining to the motives behind this incident that I don't feel would be well conveyed over Codec." Skuld replied, voice having shifted abruptly to loquacious professionalism.

"Uh…where exactly is 'here'?" Otacon asked, dreading the reply.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Nor, in fact, am I going to divulge that information here. It'll be a long trip, that's for sure."

"If you're not going to tell me, how am I supposed to know where I'm going?" The reply came in a simple, slightly impatient tone, as if Skuld expected Otacon to know this already.

"Moth knows where I am. Additionally, I suggest you stay with her at all times from this moment on—her primary objective is your protection, and protection is certainly what you'll be needing."

"…What is she?" he asked after a short silence. With a sigh, Skuld replied;

"You'll get your answers when we meet in person."

-end of chapter four-


	5. 5: Journey

-Chapter 5: Journey-

"Alright, Moth, so we apparently need to find someone named Skuld. First I should go and get Sunny—"

"Dangerous." Moth replied suddenly. "I will not be able to protect both of you; it is advisable that we go alone."

"Then I'll just go tell her—"

"No time. The enemy knows our location—surely they will be along soon to see if we have been exterminated." Moth cut in again. She stood and adjusted her glasses, looking around as if scouting the area. "Contact Rosemary through Codec and inform her of events. Sunny will be safe with them."

"But—"

"We have to escape immediately." The girl replied sharply, placing her hands on Otacon's back and beginning to push him towards his car.

"Moth--! I don't even have my keys; they're in what's left of the house somewhere!" Otacon protested, still hoping he'd wake up any second now.

"Irrelevant." She stopped pushing him and walked to the black Honda Accord. Moth tried to open the driver's side door—the handle gave slightly, but the door remained securely locked. The girl looked at her hand—for one terrifying moment, Otacon thought she would blast his car to pieces with her laser cannon.

"Moth, don't—" Before he could protest, she wrapped her fingers around the handle again; blue sparks flew around her hand and the metal door, accompanied by a crackling noise…then a click. The sparks vanished and when Moth pulled on the handle again, it opened.

"Let's go."

"How did you do that?"

"Irrelevant." Moth got into the passenger's seat and held her left hand out slightly—her index fingertip seemed to divide into panels and vanish like her right hand had before. She pulled a long, thin wire from her finger and held the end to the ignition…suddenly, the engine revved to life and the car sat there idling in the cold air. Otacon stood there in shock for a moment or two, staring at the now-running car.

"Moth—"

"Escape needs to be imminent." she interrupted in a monotone, staring straight out the windshield with the wire reaching from her index finger to the ignition. Hesitantly, Otacon got in the car. "Head north on I-95 until otherwise directed." The engineer looked over at her—a blank look in her green eyes, as always. But now there was a certain hollow quality to her voice, almost...

"Hey." he said as he started to drive—he didn't really have much choice.

"Yes, Otacon?"

"Moth, you've been living with us for a few weeks now. Maybe you think I haven't noticed, and I probably wouldn't have if Sunny hadn't pointed it out, but I've never once seen you eat or drink anything. That's...well, not normal."

"I do not understand where your line of thought leads." Moth replied, still staring straight forward.

"...Are you a robot?" he asked hesitantly. A stillness filled the small car...Moth didn't even blink.

"I do not understand. What is a robot?"

"It's, well...uh..." He tried for a moment to figure out how to explain the concept of robotics in a few simple words. "A robot is something made of metal and runs on a self-contained electric power source...uh....it can look human, but doesn't really have to..." He stammered awkwardly, simple phrases not sounding all that simple. Still, Moth remained stoic and silent as before.

"No. I do not follow those guidelines, therefore I am not a robot." A stillness fell between them, both engineer and girl; the only sound were the tires spinning beneath them, pulling them forward on a dark, snowy stretch of highway.

"But that cannon and this wire—"

"I do not know from where they originate. I have them; I shall utilize them." Fair answer, Otacon thought...but it didn't explain what he wanted to know. If she wasn't a robot, then what could explain her unusual behavior and speech patterns? All he had to rely on at the moment was a girl with wires concealed in one arm and a laser hidden within the other, and a faceless woman called Skuld waiting at the end of this long, dark highway.

-end of chapter five-


	6. 6: Distance

-Chapter 6: Distance-

The road stretched out into what seemed to Otacon like an endless darkness ahead. They had been driving for the entire day and now into the night, with hardly a word from Moth save for the occasional direction. Although the snow had halted, she showed no indication they were anywhere near doing the same. Strangest of all, at the moment their car appeared to be the only one on either side of the highway.

"…Where exactly are we going?" Otacon finally asked, figuring he should ask since he was the one driving.

"North Conway, New Hampshire." The engineer paused for a moment, processing the information that was just delivered in her usual flat tone.

"…_What_." he replied, more of an astonished statement than a question.

"North Conway, New Hampshire." Moth repeated with exactly the same inflection and tone.

"…Moth, we left from Indianapolis. Do you have any idea how far that is?"

"No." Really, he should have expected that answer and he knew it. "Unimportant. We need to travel that distance, so we will." Otacon sighed—she was right. What else could he do at that point? They were probably more than halfway there, so it would be a waste to turn back now. They traveled in silence for a few minutes, or at least until Otacon noticed what looked like a field of taillights on the road ahead.

"Huh. I guess we're not the only ones traveling tonight, Moth…uh, Moth? Are you alright?" Her hands, except for the finger connected to the ignition were clenched into tight fists, green eyes wide and yet sharply focused on the scarlet lights ahead. Something seemed to flash in the glasses she always wore, almost like a digital readout of some kind. "…What is it?"

"Not human." she replied in a strange tone, deeply disturbing in its grave solemnity.

"What? What's not—" At the same moment he spoke, Otacon realized the lights weren't holding still like they would have seemed to be if his and the other cars were both moving forward—they were slowly advancing, dozens of pairs of red lights. It was as if a wave of traffic had suddenly stopped and slowly gone into reverse.

"Accelerate." Moth cut into his thoughts, eyes darting back and forth as if carefully scanning the horizon…or reading whatever continued to flash on her lenses.

"What?!"

"Accelerate!" she snapped, the first time she had ever done so. Otacon looked at her for a moment, more startled than anything, then looked back at the slowly advancing red lights; with a sudden jolt of adrenaline, he realized each pair was a set of eyes owned by some kind of horrible black creature he couldn't—and didn't want to—see clearly in the darkness ahead. The engineer took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the wheel, hesitating a moment longer before pressing the gas pedal to the floor. The wheels shrieked in protest against the pavement before launching the car forward, towards the unseen yet horrific creatures with red eyes; then again, if he could drive a Jeep with an operating machine gun mounted on the back while Liquid Snake tried to run them both into a wall, he could handle a small battalion of whatever those were, right? As they got closer, he could make out the creatures more clearly: scaly black things on two legs, hunched forward slightly and staring with those red eyes reflecting light from an unseen source and each thin, scaled arm ending in lethal looking white claws instead of hands. They scattered as soon as the car's headlights came within range, except for one that jumped out of view of the headlights and landed on all fours, claws scraping the black paint off the hood. It snarled and hissed at the two of them, opening a mouth full of jagged, yellowing teeth. Otacon turned pale, motioning to swerve to the right and shake it off, but Moth undid her seatbelt and opened her window, reaching to the holster on her left hip with her right hand and moving to sit on the door and lean outside.

"What're you doing?!" Otacon managed to say, knowing she'd fall out if he swerved to throw the creature off. She didn't reply, but wedged her feet firmly between the passenger side seat and the door—her left hand was stretched toward the ignition—and drew a black Ruger Mk III. With three sounds like thunder, the creature stumbled and fell from the hood, leaving them with a clear path as Moth pulled herself back in and turned, aiming over the shoulder of the seat and through the back window at the rest of the creatures, which had again become little more than black shadows with glowing red eyes, the pairs of which multiplied as they turned to pursue the two of them.

"Do not stop, at any cost. Continue forward until I say to change direction. At sunrise, they will dissipate. Until then, I will stall them." At this point, Otacon didn't ask questions. A glance in the rearview mirror showed him one of the scaled creatures leaping towards the car, and two resounding shots rang out. The first broke out a section of the back window, and the second struck the clawed monster in the chest in midair, knocking it down. She replaced the pistol in its holster and took two of the .357 caliber bullets from where they rested between the .22 caliber ones and the shotgun shells in her bandolier and threw them out the hole in the back window. "Flash grenades. They'll be hesitant to follow, and we should have enough time to escape."

"What are they?!" Otacon half yelled, hands shaking violently on the wheel now that the danger was nearly past.

"Rakshasas." Moth replied, sitting back down in the passenger seat and fastening her seatbelt again as if nothing had happened.

"…Okay, so they have a name. What _exactly_ are they?" Moth didn't answer at first, back to staring out the windshield as before.

"I'm afraid I do not know, Otacon." The engineer sighed, taking a small amount of solace in the fact that they would find Skuld soon, but knowing full well he wouldn't dare pull over to sleep until then.

-end of chapter six-


End file.
